I took this lens on a trip to Asia and was pleasantly surprised by its performance. Almost as compact as the average 50mm or 35mm prime, it's pretty good in terms of sharpness and it can give you meaningful close-up options in a pinch, at a maximum magnification of 1:2.8. The disadvantage of its compactness is that the 2-touch zoom design leaves hardly any space for the zoom ring in between focus and the equally narrow aperture ring. To make up for this lack of width, Tamron has added two ribbed knobs sticking out on either side of the zoom ring, but they are not as effective a solution as the more prominent ribbed edges provided on the subsequent version with f3.5 constant aperture.